


Exes on the Backs of Your Hands

by Coffin Liqueur (HP_Lovecats)



Category: Until Dawn (Video Game)
Genre: Ambiguous Relationships, Breakups, Brief Reference to WLW Fetishization, F/F, Femslash February, Femslash February 2021, Jealousy, Mentioned/Discussed Emily Davis/Mike Munroe, Mentioned/Discussed Mike Munroe/Jessica Riley, Mild Language, Pre-Canon, Secret Relationship, Totally Not Pining, teen drama
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-18
Updated: 2021-02-18
Packaged: 2021-03-14 13:41:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29543232
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HP_Lovecats/pseuds/Coffin%20Liqueur
Summary: A moment between Emily and Jess sure turns into amoment, all right.
Relationships: Emily Davis/Jessica Riley (Until Dawn)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 6
Collections: femslash february music fest





	Exes on the Backs of Your Hands

Emily had kept her eyes open during the kiss, and therefore was able to see right off the bat that Jess pulled _right away_ from it with the _most punchable grin_ , head tipped down and tilting one way, and then the other, the tip of her tongue tracing over one side of her upper lip.  One side of her lower.

Em sure fucking  _ hoped  _ none of her seventy-damn-buck lip gloss was going to waste, she told herself, through the thought that already, she didn't want to hear it.

Sure enough: “ _Hee_ , you know, I don’t know if we really have to hide it from _Mike_ , Em. I bet he’d love to watch…”

Emily grimaced. “Shut _up_ , Jess.”

Jess snickered and _“ooh…!”_ -ed.

It made Em want to laugh _and_ slap the shit out of somebody at the same time - not Jess, though, she didn’t think, though at the same time, she didn’t think Michael. One, Jess was right: Mike was _absolutely_ that kind of guy, and it was funny, but it was disgusting, and Jess knew it.

_ She didn't want to hear it. _

...Scratch that, she did wanna smack Michael, and _yet._

“What the _hell_ , Jess!” Em gave the shoulders of the person who was here a shrug, and who started it - ruling out that she didn't kinda wanna smack her, she guessed; scowled, waved. “Why are you being like this?”

Jess raised her eyebrows; as they knit, her lips tugged, bit-at-a-time, into a smile.

It wasn’t a real one. Em knew that; she knew her. She rolled her eyes, preemptively, scoffing and looking aside, not here to watch Jess _pretend to chew shit over._

“...Why am I being like this,  _ uh, Em _ , why are  _ you  _ being like this.”

\-- Em’s eyes turned right back onto her.

Jess was scowling. Nay, _pouting._

Tucking her mittened hands up into her lap like little kitten paws. Emily rolled her eyes again, shaking her head like there was a fuckin' _bug in her ears_ this time, but she couldn’t be assed to huff or say a word as, one hand on the ground, she pulled herself up closer to her.

You know.

Like she _wanted_ to listen.

Like she _cared_ , like Jess was still _insufferably, obnoxiously adorable_ , and like she didn’t have the power here not to act on that.

She saw Jess giving her kitten-eyes that caught little moons made of the basement’s fluorescent light, to match the kitten- _paws_ , before one of those paws came up to rest on the side of her face; the pad of a thumb pressed against the opposite side of her chin.

Jess wasn’t pouting anymore.

Nor was she frowning, at all.

She looked serious; Em narrowed her eyes, her chest fiercely tightening with the smooth, _cold_ irresistible steam-clamping of a machine. _Oh, don’t give me that_ , she thought, as out loud as she could in her head, in an attempt to drown out any notion that she deserved trouble.

“...You don’t need Mike, Em,” she said - only the subtle _pointed_ drip from a wound she wanted seen tinting the inflection. She shook her head. “Neither of us do.”

Em met her eyes as easily as if they weren't _there_. She blinked once, slowly - in time with an exhale. Slid her eyes reopened, halfway, on the inhale.

Not amused.

_ Don’t do this. _

“...Like -- _you_ told _me_ that _first_ ,” Jess half-stammered back in, as she adjusted her pose, legs turning like a mermaid’s tail on the floor until she came to sit almost beside Emily; Emily, taking advantage of Jess releasing her face and denying the gesture, turned her seated position, too - _rounding her_. “When I said Mike was _kinda hot,_ you said he was some -- meathead... _dickbrain_." Her nose scrunched for a split-second, and mouth held just open like she smelled something strange. "...I thought we _both_ deserve better.”

She pulled herself further aside on kitten-paws again.

Made those eyes again.

And again, _half-stammered_ back in:

“ -- But lemme guess, now that _you’re_ dating him, he’s like some stupid _status symbol_ , or some total _bullcrap_ like that!”

She turned her head aside. Leaned in. Emily turned to look at the wall, stony.

“We’ve been together  _ forever _ , Em; you think it’d, like, shock anyone if we headed up there right now and went _‘whooo, heyyyyy!’_ ” Jess lifted one hand and flapped it in the air like a bit of confetti as she wiggle-worm-danced in place, braids flailing. “‘We’re dating now! Sorry, Mike!  _ You lose! _ ’”

Emily hated that any of this had the power to make her angry.

Jess’s _goofiness_ even when she meant what she was saying, and remembering to think that she probably picked that up when she was in theater back in high school, and that she wanted to laugh even though _this was serious_ at the thought that _god forbid anyone brings up that Jessica Riley used to be a drama geek out loud_.

That Jess _could_ , in fact, guess.

“We know each other _too goddamn well_ , Jess,” she said, finally, deflating it in attempt to add to the cold. She wouldn’t look at Jess, still; didn't want any particular degree or lack or type of intensity proving her right in thinking that she might have sounded tired.

_“And?”_ Jess said. It sounded closer, and sharper, and Emily blinked even though she tried not to.

“-- If we dated, we’d just get _sick_ of each other, okay?” she struck back, sharper-squared, with the first fuckin’ lie she could pull out of her pocket, rounding on Jess, who shivered away, grimacing. Eyes still flashing and locked hard on her. Em took two breaths; her eyes barely flicked away before she pulled out another retort.

“ -- Just like I’m sick of _you_.” She pointed - dagger straight. Shook it twice. One, two more cuts. _“Right now!”_

Jess sat back; Em didn’t release targeting. She bit her lip. Narrowed her eyes, half from above and half from below.

Her head fell tilted again. Em leaned forward and flung her pointed hand flung open - a quick-flow like a lashing snake. _What?_

With one final tilt, she wagered that Jess had parsed out that she meant it.

Something that was... _kind of_ a relief burned through her, like the dead-ass wake of a storm. No plants left in the field - only raw, churned earth. She, too, sat back even before Jess nodded to herself. And then again.

“ -- Well, I sure  _ thought  _ I knew you, anyway,” she said, ending with a twist in the side of her face.

It socked Emily in the gut, but she didn’t care. _Yeah, guess you didn’t, huh,_ she thought, as rest settled over her face, furthermore assuring herself that she was winning, here.

_Yeah, you_ would _say something whiny like that._

_And I’m saying that because I know_ you.

_ Maybe you should **get on my level** , Jess! _

_ I’m too good for Mike, yeah, but you know what? Maybe I’ve been too good for **you** all this time, too, huh. _

...She wasn’t too sure why she didn’t... actually want to _say_ it.

Simply told herself she didn’t have to as Jess got up, head hanging and shaking, and walked around her to make for the stairs. “Whatever, Em,” was all she said.

Emily’s eyes bored in the back of her head as she turned to watch her leave, telling her not to come back. Ever.

And still not wanting to say it.

* * *

Six months later, Em found herself on an incognito browser on her phone, scrolling through an account that she should had blocked and blocked for reason, of pictures of Mike and Jess.

Hate _burned_ through her eyes as she scrolled to one pic of the two of them on a beach, him in trunks and her in a bikini, waving at the camera and hiking up from the waves smiling at the lens like two people who didn’t even goddamn _know_ each other.

Flip. There they were sitting around a campfire with Matt and his big sister, both of them fucking sitting closer to babyfaced Mattyboy than each other, again waving at the camera.

Flip.

Them at the boardwalk, arms around each other’s shoulders, leaning towards each other with kissyfaces that el-oh-el, sure as fuck weren’t posed like they were ever gonna _land_.

Jess held a wave up toward the camera, oooonce again. Just in-frame.

_Of course you’d goddamn do this, Jess,_ she thought, face burning so much that she didn't have to _see_ that she was red.

She thought defense after defense after offense as she continued to scroll. _You petty bitch._ Flip. Balcony of the Washingtons’ seaside lodge. _Whatever happened to **both of us being too good for Mike, anyway?**_ \- a slanted defense made bulletproof by half-forgetfulness. Flip. Cookout at Mike’s parents’. _Now, **this** is the last straw._ Flip. No Mike, even - just Jess, giggling; she looked genuinely happy in this picture. Wearing a crown of daisies and holding a rocket-shaped tricolor popsicle, sitting in front of a purple lake under a warm watercolor sky, fireworks sparkling and sizzling in the background.

Just like in every other picture, waving right at Em.

Emily’s heart squeezed deep in her chest, and again, and again.

She shook her head out and spat a curse, reminding herself that this was all _just like_ Jess. Just why she didn’t fuckin’ need her anymore. 

Trying to make her miss her.

It was only out of hate, she reminded herself - _to bear witness to Jess’s shrine of **petty!**_ \- that she scrolled.

And scrolled.

And scrolled.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for ElasticElla's Femslash February Music Fest.
> 
> February 4th's Prompt: ["Don't Trust Me"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPNeYsLVL_A) \- 3OH!3; a tongue-in-cheek 2000's party song about being an untrustworthy cad seemed like a good prompt for characters from an irreverent and also often tongue-in-cheek game that's... partly about fraught/broken trust and chaotic interpersonal dynamics!


End file.
